Believe it or not, even Americans can receive asylum in The Netherlands! Today Dutch newspaper NRC Next reports that an American mother and her children received asylum in the Netherlands (NL).

Holly Ann Collins was on the run for her abusive husband and took her two young children, Zachery (11) and Jennifer (9) out of the country. She was trying to get to New Zealand, but in Amsterdam she was bumped of the flight. She did not have the required travel documents to continue and might even be forced to return to the USA. It was then she decided to apply for asylum at Amsterdam Schiphol airport. The military police officer’s to whom she requested asylum, initially just laugh at her. But as she had a well document case of abuse, they had to send her to an asylum center. In 1996 she receives official refugee status from the Dutch government.

But now, 14 years later, the children are now 25 and 21, the FBI still has a warrant out. Until recently only local Dutch police officers knew about the FBI warrant. But via the internet a neighbor of the family found out about the warrant and reported Ann Collins to the FBI. The neighbor, Jaap Hogewoning, complains in the newspaper that the family of Ann Collins, who now has been extended to five more biological children and three adopted children, is all on welfare and a plague for the neighborhood. He informed the neighborhood about the FBI warrant and put the warants on the house of the family.

In the US district attorney of Hennepin County, Minnesota wants to prosecute Ann Collins. But American lawyer Alan Rosenfeld, specialized in abuse cases, thinks it’s a good case and wants to defend Ann Collins. Former Democratic majority leader of the United States House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer, even invited her to speak to the American congress about her abuse case.

And the Dutch government? They are in denial; they say it’s impossible that The Netherlands gave asylum to an American.

10 children, welfare, neighbors complaining about the family? Could it be she met a nice Muslim in the asylum center? After all, she seems to be attrackted to domminant men has been attracked to a dominant man before. If you take a look at Jennifer her video, you could come to that conclusion. How irionic: American woman, flees for her abusive American husband to mary a Muslim immigrant in Holland to live from welfare.

Update:Some commenters, who clearly love Holly Ann Collins very much, have reacted angrily on my above speculations (last Italic section of the story). These speculations were based on the fact that the newspaper reported that Holly Ann Collins now has 10 children, an extremely high number, normally only seen in Dutch Muslim families. Of course Dutch media would never let us know about these kind of details, thus I speculated on it.

Maybe that was not the right thing to do, because I do believe this is a personal tragedy. Unlike the suggestion of some commenters, I did not write that her American husband was a Muslim. Nor do I think she and her children were not abused by her former American husband. She is of course also not responsible for the abuse of her ex-husband, she is only responsible for marrying him.

As I made these speculations in the first place, I now also like to point readers to information provided by these commenters:

1) Holly Ann Collins is not remarried2) There is confusion about the number of children3) The neighbor had to appear in court the 28th of March for beating up Holly Lee Ann

(Unfortunately the commenters did not provided me with sources that support these claims).

Update: Lawyer of Holly Ann Collins = Islam defenderAs suggested by some commenter I did some further investigation in this matter and it turns out that the lawyer of Holly Ann Collins is socialist politician Els Lucas (PvdA) of we reported earlier here and here.

She is a well known lawyer defending Muslims ‘rights’. Lucas has filed charges against Geert Wilders in 2007, after he said he favored a ban on the Koran and wanted to stop all Muslim immigration to The Netherlands. The lawyer of Holly Ann Collins also filed charges against Wilders for his Fitna movie, because she says: “it steers anti Muslim hatred”.

Update: Video tapesThe family seems to have a very bad relationship with the neighbors (NL) who reported them to the FBI. Daughter Jenifer has recorded some of them and placed the recordings on Youtube (NL) and Dutch biggest blog geenstijl.nl (NL). Holly Collins, her daughter Jenifer and their lawyer Lucas also told their story on national television (NL). No word about her partner, her other children or why the neighbors are so violent and angry.

Update: Weblog geenstijl asked questionsWeblog geenstijl.nl, in defense of Holy Collins, visited her and her neighbors (NL). In front of their video (NL) camera people in the neighborhood call the family nuts and understand, or agree with, Jaap Hogewoning. But not many details are revealed as most people refuse to talk much in front of the camera.